The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-10-17
Anonr KALAMAzoo cELERr.
why 1t Is Not Good Celery. and Where the
Best Celery Comes Erom

Why 1t Is Not Good Celery, and Where the
Best Celery Comes Erom.
Why is it they make such parade of its be-
ing Kalamazoo celery on some of the hotel din
ner cards up town2 Is it because they are honest
and want people to know it is Kalamazoo celery,
and so give it wide berthE
well, no, suppose that is hardly the idea. :
said the downtown restaurant-keeper
of whom the question asked. II suppose
they don't mean just that, but that is what
they ought to mean. Kalamazoo ciery IL
fraud. They have been booming It q
great deal, and trying to make great
It is about three years since they began to
grow good deal OF celery out kalamazoo way.
They said the soil out there had peculiar
something about it which celery's long
felt want and that the celery which grew in it
was whittier and crisper and more deiecately ha-
vored than that grown anywhere else in all the
wide world. They also said that they had the
boss celery cultivators and there and then they
got lot of dunderheads to print kalamazoo
celery their dinner bills, as though it was
big thing.
1T is. as matter of fact, pretty bad celery.
1t comes here in bundles of about a dozen SPRAYS
to the bundle. The green tops cut off and 1t
is neatly put up. But that is the end of 1t.
When the celery gets here the bottoms of the
stalks generally streaked with those rusty
stripes which the first signs of decay. or else
they are in advanced stage of decomposition.
Celery wants careful handling. 1t will not bear
transportation over long distances without being
injured. matter how much pains you take to
protect it. The Kalamazoo celery starts from
Michigan very ordinary celery and arrives here
very extraordinary celery IN point of badness.
1T is all very well to serve 1t at a tabl dhote
There man paws much 70: his meal, and
takes what he likes of what is offered. If he
thinks Kalamazoo printed before celery makes
bad celery good celery, he eats IL, and Is
satisfied. If he doesn't like bad celery oven
if its name is Kalamazoo. he lets it alone. and
takes something else for his money. But that
won't do where meals are served la carte,
ana where man pays a good price for each
item he gets. II you put bad celery before
man who has paid good money for good artl-
Gle it doesn't make any difference to him
whether the celery comes from kalamazoo or
Oshkosh. He either fires it back goes away
Disguised and won't return l tried the kala-
mazoo celery, and il didn't work. have regu-
lar celery Eends among NV customers They
know what good celery is. and won't eat din
ner without it, and if they can't get it at one
place they will go where they can.
s'rhe best celery | know ANYTHING about
is something in the soil which makes celery just
about what celery ought to be as you
could WISH A good deal OF celery is grown up
thereabouts but somehow not much of !t gets
to the New York market Most of our celery
comes from quite near here in New Jersey.
good deal, for instance is grown out by Green
vile. just beyond Jersey City. Then we get
great deal from down on Long Island. 1t is all
very fair celery, way ahead of the kalamazoo
article, but still way behind that grown up by
Poughkeepsie.
celery req hires the carefulest kind of careful
cultivation. It has TO be planted and trans
planted. and then kept heaped up with dirt.
The soil must be rich and we'll drained. In
Europe it grows wild in the bitches. and in its
native state is rank, coarse. disagreeable in
taste, and even very poisonous 1t has taken q
long cultivation to civilize celery. and make 1t
the gentle delicate thing we know. There are
several other imports from Europe which have
to undergo similar bleaching and civilizing
process, and they are not all vegetables"